In the southwestern corner of the central court ofthe palace at Mallia is a round stone called kernos,along the rim are 33 cup marks plus a bigger one.If each of the smaller cup marks represents oneday, all of them may represent a month of 33 days,or 3 long weeks of 11 days. A year would have33 long weeks or 11 months plus 2 and occasionally3 more days, accounting for a regular year of 365 daysand an occasional leap year of 366 days, the additionaldays represented by the bigger cup mark.

You may remember the number sequence I dubbedAriadne's thread (not to be confounded with the logicalstrategy of this name):

136/11 (plus 235/19) 371/30 ... 4131/334

371 lunar years or lunations or synodic monthscorrespond to 30 solar years or simply years. Howmany days are 30 years or 371 lunations? The ancientway of counting lunations was 30 29 30 29 30 29 3029 30 ... days for 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... lunations. 13 and 19lunations counted that way yield 384 and 561 daysrespectively, together 945 days for 32 lunations:

561/19 (plus 945/32) 403/51 ... 10956/371

30 years correspond to 371 lunations or 10956 days,revealing a fine ceremonial calendar. A long week has11 days, a month 33 days, a year has 33 weeks or 11months plus 2 or 3 more days, while 30 years equal371 lunations or 10956 days or 996 weeks.

Let us check on the relation of years and days. One year is a little more than 365 days, 2 years are more than 730 days, 4 years are slightly lessthan 1461 days:

730/2 (plus 1461/4) 2101/6 3452/10 5113/14

6574/18 8035/22 9496/26 10957/30

Now we get 10957 days for 30 years, one day morethan before. The mistake in the above calendar isone day (plus six hours), tolerable in a ceremonialcalendar.

365/1 (plus 1461/4) 1826/5 3287/9 4748/18

6209/17 7670/21 9131/25 10592/29 12053/33

33 years are 12053 days (exactly 12052.992... days).33 regular years of 365 days are 12045 days, 8 daysless than the above number, suggesting this rule forleap years: 33 years are composed of 25 regularyears of 365 days and 8 leap years of 366 days.

Next time: Minoan bull leapers

Milo, thank you for the hint at a 405 lunation periodused by the Maya, will have a look at the numericalpossibilities. You are right, calendars offer a windowon the past. Regarding very early calendars we havenot many written records, however, I believe, we havemany records in visual language. Regards, Franz